The wind had stopped. In the spring of his seventeenth year, Amamiya Kanata stood in a place that felt like the end of the world. Concrete ruins. Shattered glass and rusted steel frames. No one around. The sky was gray, clouds hanging low and heavy. It might rain. But he didn't care either way. His left hand gently gripped his right wrist. His fingers traced over the countless old scars beneath his clothes. Skin slightly raised. This alone was proof that he had been alive. (*Guess it's fine now.*) Kanata stood at the edge of a rooftop with no fence. His eyes were a deep, dark color, reflecting nothing. His dull black hair hung limp in the windless air, falling over his face by gravity alone. He tended to look down, his bangs covering his eyes. A thin body. Slightly hunched posture. 172 centimeters tall. He used to wear a school uniform, but now he was in a worn-out hoodie and jeans. In the distance, he heard the sound of a train. The sound of everyday life. A world that moved on as if it were the most natural thing. But within it, there was no place for Kanata. (*How did it come to this?*) His thoughts drifted back into the past. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Three years ago. His father disappeared. To be precise, it was what people called a "vanishing act." One morning he woke up, and the luggage and bankbooks were gone, with only divorce papers left on the living room table. He didn't know the reason. No — he knew. His father had never been suited for family life. He always went somewhere on his days off, and his arguments with Kanata's mother had grown more frequent. "If only you weren't here…" Those were the first words his mother said to Kanata after his father left. Her eyes, drowning in alcohol, were hollow — but deep within them, there was unmistakable hatred. Pure hatred, directed at Kanata. "Looking at your face reminds me of him." "Why do you have to look so much like him?" Kanata couldn't say anything. He just kept his head down, feeling his existence being chipped away, little by little. His mother worked multiple jobs and came home late at night. Every time she returned and saw Kanata, she sighed. She seemed to have no energy to cook, so Kanata's days of surviving on convenience store bento continued. No conversation. His mother didn't look at Kanata. She refused to look at him. At school, he had friends. But there was no one he could talk to about his home life. Everyone thought he had a normal family. Kanata pretended to be normal too. He smiled, gave appropriate responses, and said, "I'm fine." At night, alone in his room, he pressed a cutter blade to his left wrist. It hurt. But that pain was the only undeniable proof that he existed. Watching the blood flow, Kanata thought: (*Ah, I'm alive.*) The scars multiplied. His mother never noticed. Even if she had, she probably wouldn't have said anything. After that, his mother left Kanata with relatives. "I can't do this. You raise him." Kanata overheard his mother's voice through the phone. Then came the shuffling around. His paternal aunt's house, his maternal uncle's house, back to the aunt's house. Wherever he went, they called him "a troublesome child," "a gloomy kid." There was no place for him. He was just an existence given food and a bed. (*Why am I even here?*) He asked the question, but there was no answer. In the spring of his seventeenth year, Kanata stopped going to school and began spending his days in the ruins. And today, he stood on this rooftop. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Kanata looked up at the sky. Gray clouds drifted slowly. There was still no wind. The world was silent, as if it were dead. (*I just kind of thought I'd die.*) There was no clear reason. It wasn't exactly despair. He was just tired. Nothing mattered anymore. The meaning of living, the meaning of dying — both felt equally worthless. "…Just kind of." He tried saying it out loud. His own voice sounded strangely distant. Kanata tried to take one step forward. At that moment. His vision warped, twisting grotesquely. The air grew heavy. He couldn't breathe. A sensation like something crawling up from beneath his feet. (*Huh…?*) His consciousness cut out. His body fell endlessly. Into a dark, deep hole. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ How much time had passed? Kanata awoke in a thick, choking fog. "…Where am I?" His voice was hoarse. He pushed himself up. The ground was covered in damp fallen leaves, his palms slightly cold. The air was cool, carrying the scent of earth and grass. He looked around but could see nothing. A milky-white dense fog obscured everything, his visibility no more than ten meters at best. Enormous trees loomed faintly within the mist. Their trunks were strangely twisted, and at the tips of their branches, leaves emitting a pale blue light swayed gently. (*What are these trees…?*) Nothing felt real. Kanata slowly stood up. His body felt no pain. He should have fallen from the rooftop of the ruins, yet he didn't have a single injury. (*A dream?*) He thought so, but the smells and sensations were too vivid. Then, he looked up at the sky above. There, it was. Beyond the fog, towering in the distant sky, a massive silhouette. A tree. An unbelievably enormous tree. Its trunk was as thick as a mountain, its branches spreading out beyond the clouds. "…No way." Kanata was speechless. Something like that couldn't exist in reality. No — even if it did exist in reality, this was definitely not Japan. (*Another world, huh.*) It was a common story in online novels and games. But he never imagined it would happen to him. That was when it happened. *Rustle.* A sound came from deep within the fog. Kanata reflexively turned toward it. His heart thumped hard. (*Something's there.*) He held his breath. What slowly emerged from the mist was — a wolf. But not an ordinary wolf. Its body length easily exceeded one and a half meters. Its gray fur stood on end, and sharp fangs peeked from its mouth. Most of all, its eyes glowed red. Not just one. Another one. And another further back. Three in total. Grayfang — Kanata had no way of knowing yet, but that was the name of this demon beast. "…!" His legs wouldn't move. He knew he had to run, but his body refused to listen. The demon beasts let out low growls. Little by little, they closed their encirclement. (*I'm going to die.*) Somewhere in his mind, the words surfaced. Die. This time for sure. He, who had tried to die in the ruins, would die meaninglessly in a place like this. And then, his mother's voice flashed through his mind again. —*If only you weren't here.* (*That's right. I'm an unnecessary existence.*) The strength drained slightly from Kanata's eyes. One of the demon beasts kicked off the ground and lunged. Its sharp fangs aimed for Kanata's throat. At that moment. "—【Glare Veil】." A voice like a ringing bell, yet cold, resounded. Light exploded. A silver flash filled his vision. It was so dazzling that Kanata reflexively covered his eyes with his arm. When the light subsided, the demon beasts were gone. In their place stood a single girl. Long silver hair reaching her waist streamed in the wind that cut through the fog. Deep amethyst eyes, like violet gemstones, coldly looked down at Kanata. She was tall for a woman, her slender body wrapped in a deep indigo cloak. She held nothing in her hands. But faint particles of light still trailed from her fingertips. "…I was saved?" When Kanata muttered in a hoarse voice, the girl's gaze grew even colder. [cold] "If you want to die, do it somewhere else." A dismissive remark. Her voice carried clear rejection. [cold] "This is the Mistveil Forest. Without a rift in the barrier, it's not a place you can just wander into. Where did you come from?" "…Another world, I think." When Kanata answered honestly, the girl — Lilia Vaints — raised an eyebrow slightly. [cold] "Another world? I've only heard of such things in old tales." "It's true. You might not believe me, but…" Lilia stared at Kanata in silence for a moment. A gaze that seemed to appraise him. Then, she let out a small sigh. [cold] "…A useless foreigner, then." The words had a cold, dismissive ring to them. But. Kanata noticed. He noticed that beneath her cloak, Lilia was clenching her fist tightly. That her hand was trembling faintly. (*She's forcing herself.*) It was intuition. If she didn't reject people, she wouldn't be able to protect herself. That kind of fragility seeped from her stance. "…Follow me." Lilia turned her back and began walking. Kanata silently followed. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ After walking for a while, the fog cleared. After a sensation like passing through a membrane, his vision suddenly opened up. There — was a small settlement. Wooden houses dotted the area, and fields spread across the southern slope. Wheat, perhaps — green stalks swayed in the wind. Narrow paths wove between the houses, and a few figures could be seen. The air was different. Clear, with a faintly sweet scent. [cold] "This is the Mistveil Village. The forest you were in until just moments ago lies outside the barrier that protects this village." "Barrier?" [cold] "…If you don't know, ask someone else later." Lilia answered without stopping. Along the way, the villagers looked at Kanata with surprised expressions. Outsiders must be rare. That made sense. Lilia had said this village was completely isolated from the outside world. Led by Lilia, Kanata entered a two-story wooden building at the center of the village — the village chief's hall. The inside seemed to double as a meeting hall, with a wide open wooden floor spreading out before them. "Oh my." A hoarse voice rang out. What emerged from the back was a stooped old woman. Her gray hair was tied back, and her deeply wrinkled face gave off a strangely warm impression. [gentle] "Lilia, who is this child?" [cold] "I picked him up in the forest. He seems to have fallen from another world, Granny Hanna." The old woman called Hanna gazed intently at Kanata. Then, she slowly approached. [gentle] "You're hurt. Here, sit down there." Kanata sat on the floor as he was told. Hanna sat beside him and took a medicine box from her bag. [gentle] "Does anywhere hurt?" "Not particularly… ah." When Hanna took Kanata's left arm, his wrist was exposed from the sleeve torn during the transfer. Countless old scars. White, raised lines carved over and over again. He sensed Lilia catch her breath. Hanna's hands stopped for just a moment. But that was all. [gentle] "…It must have hurt." She simply said that, and gently placed her hand over the scars. It was warm. That palm was hard, knotted, a hand that had worked for as many years as she had lived. But could there be a hand this gentle? [gentle] "It's all right. Here, you don't have to hide anything." Saying only that, Hanna began gently wrapping a bandage over the scars. She asked for no explanation. No words of pity, no lectures. Just a gentle touch, covering the wounds. For the first time in a long while, Kanata felt "alive." How long had it been since he'd felt the warmth of another person's hand? Deep in his chest, a sensation like something slowly welling up. (*I'm still…*) Not dead. This was an unknown world, with unknown people, but these people didn't reject Kanata. He still didn't know what lay behind Lilia's cold attitude. He didn't know what life in the village was like, what the barrier was, what the great tree Yggdria was — he knew nothing. But. "…What should I do here?" When Kanata forced the words out, Hanna smiled gently. [gentle] "First, rest. We'll talk after that." Lilia leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching Kanata. Her amethyst eyes wavered, as if she were thinking about something. [cold] "…Do as you like. You can't go anywhere anyway." A dismissive tone. But Kanata understood. (*This person is probably